108 is enough: Cubs beat Indians to end baseball’s longest World Series drought – Los Angeles Times

Life cannot give you everything. It is too fleeting, too cruel, too rooted in reality to allow the fulfillment of fantasy. But baseball, in doses both large and small, can serve as a salve, as a distraction, as a reason to believe in infinite possibility. Baseball can give you everything. 

On Wednesday evening in Game 7 of the World Series, inside a ballpark packed to its capacity with fans of the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, baseball displayed the wealth of its gifts. The sport elicits exhilaration and provokes despair. It shocks and it torments. It leaves 29 teams despondent and one team euphoric. 

For the first time since 1908, a 108-year stretch that transformed black cats and billy goats into symbols of futility, the Cubs stand as the team experiencing euphoria. To end the streak, the Cubs absorbed a series of knockout blows from the Indians, survived a collapse by their flame-throwing closer and weathered a storm sweeping off Lake Erie in an 8-7 victory in 10 innings. 

“It was just an epic battle,” said World Series MVP Ben Zobrist, who ripped the go-ahead RBI double off Cleveland reliever Bryan Shaw in the 10th. “I can’t believe, after 108 years, we’re finally able to hoist the trophy.”